Canon Rebel XT digital camera -

[masraum]

How much are you looking to spend? Give me a budget and I'll tell you what I'd do after mucho reading on the Canon forums.

[Craig 930 RS]

Hmm, $1,100?

[trj911]

Originally posted by 911teo
Re lenses...


Now I have been told (please I am not the expert so maybe this is BS) that for a digital SLR the 24-55 is a must. The standard 28-... zoom lenses are not wide enough... It has something to do with the different optical set up from a normal camera... I don't know...

So if you don't mind carrying the 2 lenses around I think the cosco deal is fantastic. If you want only one lense the Tamron 28-300 is super for a price/quality aspect. U can't go wrong with either!!!

I do agree that the 28-300 lens does not give good wide angle shots. Fortunately I have a Canon Powershot S60 point and shoot type digital that has a wide angle lens and it works nicely so I have not had to get a wide angle lens.

Craig911- You say you currently have a Minolta. Is it an SLR and would the lenses fit a digital Minolta? The Minoltas are very good cameras and would cost a bit more than the Canon but you might save $ by not having to buy lenses. At leat not right away. I have stuck with Canon for most of my cameras (SLR and video and other) so I could swap memory cards and batteries between cameras. Its nice to always have a charged battery or two with you. I learned that lwsson the hard way.

I have seen the digital Rebel for as low as 699 (including an 18-55 Canon lens)on the Dell web site and at that price you still have money left over for a lens or large memory card or extra battery.

[masraum]

Craig, here's a good page with a synopsis of EOS lenses

http://bobatkins.photo.net/photography/digital/10d300dlenses.html

Trying to max out the focal range and budget, here
50mm f1.8 <$100
EF-S 17-85/4-5.6 IS USM $525
70-200/4L USM <$600 pro series lens

These are really nice lenses, especialy the 70-200 "L" lens. (the "L" lenses are the canon pro grade lenses)

Personally I always find 200mm just a bit short, and I like to tinker with macro photography and my budget wasn't that big.
So I recently bought the Sigma 70-300 APO DG macro lens, $200. The quality is great for the price, it does half life size macro, and it goes as wide as 300mm
I have the "nifty 50" which is really great. If I could afford lenses that fast I would. I also have the kit lens, 18-55. It does display some vignetting at the wide end and distortion, but fortunately Photoshop can fix that.

Here's a current thread on the EOS lens board called "Best Everyday/Walking Around Lens"
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=124827

A great place to buy photo equipment, good prices, good reputation, good service, www.bhphoto.com

[Craig 930 RS]

Damn....great info, Steve.

I have the 28-80 & 75-300 for the 35mm Minolta.
Now the embarassing part.....I truly do not know what the #s mean, or for that matter much of the other photo lingo.

[masraum]

On the zoom lenses that you mention, 24-70 and the 75-300, smaller the number the more of a scene you can get in, but the smaller the stuff in the picture is. So if you are in a small room and you want to photograph everyone sitting around unwrapping presents or whatever then you'll be using the 28 end of the zoom, to get the same level of zoom on an XT you need a minimum zoom focal length of 17 or 18. When you want to focus in on one item and make it seem much closer and larger than it really is then you'll use the 300mm end of the focal range.

same scene, but different lenses
40 mm

300 mm


The other numbers, the ones behind an f, like f4-5.6 or f1.8, are the aperture size. Just like the pupil in your eye each lens has a diaphram that can be large or small to let in less or more light. The smaller the number the larger the aperture can get. The larger the aperture the more light gets in. The more light gets in the faster shutter speed you can use.



With faster shutter speeds and larger apertures you can more easily take pics in low light or action shots. Another "effect" that the aperture affects is the depth of field. If you are photographing a subject, car, family member, flower, etc... and you want only the subject to be in focus, but the background to be blurred so that the subject really stands out you need to use a large aperture. If you want to get in lots of foreground and background then you want to use a small aperture.
large aperture/small f number

small aperture/large f number


A lens with a maximum f-stop of 1.8 opens up large to let a lot of light through, that means that you can get enough light to the film/sensor in a much shorter period than if the lens was f4. On a zoom lens you'll see something like f4-5.6 because the f-stop changes as you zoom the lens through it's range.

[Craig 930 RS]

IOU a beer - thanks!

[RallyJon]

Don't discount the value of a large aperture. You can crank the ISO up to 1600 if you like noise, but there is no substitute for getting as much available light as possible to your CCD.

Think about it: if there wasn't an enormous benefit, why would anyone pay the large premium for an L lens? The difference is significant.

[masraum]

Originally posted by RallyJon
Don't discount the value of a large aperture. You can crank the ISO up to 1600 if you like noise, but there is no substitute for getting as much available light as possible to your CCD.

Think about it: if there wasn't an enormous benefit, why would anyone pay the large premium for an L lens? The difference is significant.

No doubt. I love my nifty 50 because of the aperture. I'd love to be able to afford the assorted L lenses that have ultra low apertures, but I'd probably have a hard time just buying the filters to fit those mammoth lenses.